The village anecdote that was appended to the black dogs really threw me off, or at least it pushed me towards a greater degree of engagement with their symbolism.

On one hand (if we take the Mayor's story to be true), to learn that the black dogs were owned by the Gestapo and trained to commit horrible deeds is to come to terms with the realization that human nature is inhabited by malevolence, that humans are capable of doing terrible things. But it is important, nonetheless, to note that this realization is specifically focused towards other people. It is the acknowledgement that yes, some people--such as the Gestapo--can be genuinely evil. But we appraise them as entities that are at an inconceivable distance from ourselves: they have undergone some horrific indoctrination, have been brain-washed or were simply born bad apples. This realization is saddening and frightening, but nevertheless it does nothing to tarnish the view that we have of ourselves. To impugn the Gestapo makes no footprint on our self-conceptions--after all, this is the Gestapo we're talking about here, not just Tom down the street or Jon the grocer.

On the other hand, one must also not close one's eyes to the notion that this account may not be factual. It may have been, as Madame the innkeeper insists, a vicious fabrication of men who harbored no good will towards the woman involved in the story--a spot of malicious village gossip, fueled by jealousy and perhaps spurned desire. So, the other layer of the "black dogs" concept that is highlighted by the fact that the anecdote itself may have sprung from malevolence (petty though it may seem in comparison with large-scale tragedy): it reminds us of the fact that all of the people around us, with whom we share a bottle of wine or laugh about old memories, respected neighbours and cherished friends...All these people are, and by inference ourselves, are capable of malice and misdeed. We have not had circumstance impose upon a set of conditions that forced us to employ this malice as part of a large, orchestrated, systematic exercise of violence, but nevertheless in the case that such circumstances were to impose themselves upon us we should, by no means, feel ourselves exempt in any way. People commit terrible deeds while all the while holding onto the notion that they are intrinsically good people, not at all like those really evil people who exist out there in the world: for they are only acting out such violence, that they have to perform such violence due to this reason or another, it's nothing like what they would have wanted to do had fortune not imposed itself so cruelly. But it seems to me that, when it comes to violence, there is little difference between enacting violence and having committed a violent act. The validity of the following justification:" But surely, I'm not one of those genuinely awful people--I just did what I had to do!" is something that this passage of Black Dogs refutes, for it asserts that those same dogs (bigger or smaller, thinner or meaner) are not just in the selective echelon of great evil-doers,  but in every one of us.